INDUSTRY FOCUS Metal Products
Fastenal sharpens its saw service off ering with VOLLMER
F
ounded by Bob Kierlin in 1967, the Winona, US-headquartered business that started as a small company selling fasteners,
has exploded into a 20,000 worldwide workforce with ten manufacturing facilities and over 750,000 products. The manufacturing site in Minnesota is also home to two VOLLMER circular saw blade sharpening machines – their story starts in the 1980s. With tens of thousands of fasteners being modifi ed each month in all shapes and sizes up to a 4-inch diameter, Fastenal found the process had an insatiable appetite for burning through HSS circular saw blades. So, instead of continually sending a growing number of blades to a subcontract shop for sharpening, Fastenal bought its fi rst saw blade sharpening machine – culminating in the opening of Fastenal’s sharpening shop in 1995. With on-site facilities for cold and hot-formed fastener production, the 100,000-square-foot factory quickly evolved its cutting capabilities, adding Tungsten Carbide Tipped (TCT) sawing to its existing HSS cold saws. A wider variety of fastener materials, a production increase and the need for sharpening both HSS and TCT saws led Fastenal to add a series of additional saw blade grinding machines from 1995 through the 2000s. This investment in grinding machines was bolstered by the decision to branch out to servicing saws for local customers. As the servicing of blades for Fastenal customers rapidly grew, the sharpening shop added more machines from diff erent manufacturers, and by the late-2000s the company had four grinding machines for sharpening cold saws and another three sharpening machines for servicing TCT blades. With four manually-loaded cold saw
re-sharpening machines and three TCT saw grinding machines, the seven staff in the department had an output of 20 HSS saw blades and an additional 25 carbide- tipped saws each day – an output that yielded a lead time of 2 to 3 weeks on saw blade servicing. Not satisfi ed with its productivity levels and lead times, the costly servicing and
32 March 2021 | Automation
repeated repairs of ageing machines and the subsequent knock-on eff ect of further extending lead times – the situation had to evolve.
In 2018, Fastenal took the plunge and jumped straight into automation with the acquisition of a VOLLMER CHD270 carbide-tipped saw sharpening machine with eight CNC controlled axes and the VOLLMER ND230 automated loading station. With the capacity to store up to 250 saw blades, the 4-axis robotic loading system with three loading carriages transformed production almost instantly. The benefi ts of the VOLLMER CHD270 in facilitating this production cycle has been signifi cant. Firstly, despite having seven older machines, none were capable of processing special geometry saw blades. The special blades that were still serviced externally were instantly brought
The story of the VOLLMER circular saw blade sharpening machines starts in the 1980s
back in-house, giving Fastenal full process control whilst reducing lead times and dependency on an external supplier – and that’s before factoring in the elimination of subcontract costs.
The instant success of the VOLLMER CHD270 resulted in the company ordering the Loroch Solution K850 grinding centre for sharpening, re- toothing and chamfering its metal- cutting circular saw blades. Delivered six months after the VOLLMER CHD270 in the spring 2019, the combination of the Loroch Solution K850 and the VOLLMER CHD270 reduced labour requirement in the saw blade sharpening cell from fi ve staff to just two – replacing seven machines with just two. LLoroch Solution K850 eliminated the
requirement for external subcontract servicing of saw blades, giving Fastenal the fl exibility, capability and capacity to produce both standard and special geometry blades. Despite being a manually-loaded machine, the Solution K850 has more than doubled production from 20 blades a day to 20 per shift. The cost reductions and productivity
improvements for Fastenal have been signifi cant. Equally impressive is the lead time reduction, which shrank from two to three weeks to four to fi ve days with a nationwide next-day service, if required.
www.fastenal.com;
www.vollmer-group.com CONTACT:
Fastenal VOLLMER
automationmagazine.co.uk
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